KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22: Some 75,000 ardent fans of Coldplay braved the rain and heavy traffic to be on time for British rock band’s concert at Bukit Jalil here tonight.
Despite calls by some parties for the concert to be banned for one reason or the other, the business multiplier effect seemed to have gone full-swing at the Malaysian leg of Coldplay’s Music of the Sphere World Tour here.
The brisk business that had been generated from Coldplay’s decision to perform in Kuala Lumpur cannot be denied as it had benefited countless numbers of restaurants, food stallholders, transport operators and hotel owners, to name a few.
Enterprising street-smart entrepreneurs also read signals from the sky well enough and made a killing selling disposable raincoats. They sold in the drizzling rain at Bukit Jalil at three or four times the original price of RM2 sold by a general merchandise store. A thunderstorm had broken out around the Bukit Jalil Stadium at around 5pm in the evening.
Raincoat-sellers were not the only ones rolling in the money. They were also scores of people selling counterfeit Coldplay t-shirts at a fraction of the original price of the legitimate merchandise. Some went for as low as RM50 a piece as against RM200 each from the legitimate merchandisers!
And to avoid untoward incidents from happening like lack of drinking water, a sponsor had even put up a water refilling station at the venue.
Tiffany Oon, a fan who had come all the way from Ipoh, said while she came prepared with her own water supply, she was pleasantly surprised to see the water refilling station.
“The rain earlier also made the atmosphere inside the stadium quite cooling,” she said.
Perhaps when Coldplay starts playing, the temperature may change.
WE